


Immolation

by magikfanfic



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Backstory, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon, Pre-Rogue One, probably not canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 07:25:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16300670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magikfanfic/pseuds/magikfanfic
Summary: The last thing Baze is expecting on a quiet morning, deep in reflection, is a sudden weight settling on his lap, a steady, warm, honed weight that he recalls from a multitude of sparring sessions that have occurred over the years. He probably should not be able to discern one person from another based solely on how they balance, the particular shape of their legs, the way they manage to be both solid and light like a feather, indicative of the fact that they could spring up and dance away at any moment. By all rights, he should not know exactly who is seated on his thighs, but he does. Baze knows.





	Immolation

The last thing Baze is expecting on a quiet morning, deep in reflection, is a sudden weight settling on his lap, a steady, warm, honed weight that he recalls from a multitude of sparring sessions that have occurred over the years. He probably should not be able to discern one person from another based solely on how they balance, the particular shape of their legs, the way they manage to be both solid and light like a feather, indicative of the fact that they could spring up and dance away at any moment. By all rights, he should not know exactly who is seated on his thighs, but he does. Baze knows. And it is not through any miracle of the Force no matter how much he wishes that could be the truth.

No, Baze knows because he knows, has spent years memorizing every little thing about this person in the same breath and with the same focus that he has cataloged the dictates of the Whills itself. Baze has always been an ardent disciple, though his devotion has felt torn in two, unable to coalesce on one thing alone, which bothers him sometimes, more and more often as he has gotten older, wise enough to reflect on what it means, the way his palms itch when he looks at this person, the way his mouth dries up and all his words run out, the way his soul seems to yearn outward as though wanting to pour itself into something corporeal that can be cupped in hands, held, lifted to a mouth and swallowed, shared.

The Force is love, and love is the Force, and love is allowed, but still. But still, it has felt like something he is not supposed to feel because it is so big and all-encompassing. Sometimes this love feels larger than the Force itself, and Baze is not sure how that can possibly be when the Force is endless, in everything, beyond their comprehension; though they try they can only see shadows of it, mere flickers of what it actually is, not the whole. There is too much. They can never comprehend the whole of it.

He isn’t sure whether he can ever comprehend the whole of what it is he feels, either, and so it is very much like the Force, isn’t it? Only close enough for him to hold in his hands. 

Or, rather, for it to sit bodily on his lap in the middle of the morning, unexpected, out of nowhere but with a purpose, seemingly as comfortable as if his lap was a habitual, safe resting place instead of a perch for frequent boasting about being the best fighter in the temple. 

Baze keeps his eyes closed because perhaps this is all a daydream, some trick of his wandering mind, and it will leave him alone soon to go back to reflecting on the ways in which the Force moves in everyone and how it helps to set people on the right path. He keeps his eyes closed until the hands come to rest on his upper thighs, and then he jolts upright and finally looks. 

Chirrut Imwe’s meter wide smile is there to greet him, dazzling, blinding, more beautiful than anything outside of the stars has any right to be, and smug as shit. “Paying attention at last?”

Baze says nothing, unwilling to admit that he has been paying attention the entire time, especially parts of his body that Chirrut’s hands are now dangerously near and he wishes, for both their sakes, that he would move them before this becomes awkward. More awkward for him he should say. Nothing ever seems to make Chirrut feel awkward, which is decidedly proven by the fact that the man opted to simply plop onto his lap uninvited in the first place.

“No good morning? No growls? No smile? Am I losing my touch or did I rouse you too early from meditation and you haven’t properly found your way back from the Force?”

When Baze swallows, louder than he wanted to, audible enough that he’s sure Chirrut heard, he thinks he catches Chirrut’s eyes linger on his throat for a moment before fixing themselves back on his face. Chirrut Imwe has such complete mastery of his body that Baze has seen him not blink for at least thirty minutes, willing his very eyes not to dry out in the typically arid climate of Jedha. So he doesn’t understand why Chirrut blinks now, rapidly, as though trying to clear something from his eyes. Baze would think more on it if it weren’t for the hands still warm on his thighs, the thumbs swiping over the cloth of his robe unconsciously because while Chirrut has body mastery, he doesn’t always use it and he is a frequent fidgeter.

Each swipe of those thumbs across his robes feel like something Baze will have to do penance over and yet also like a gift.

The easiest way to rid oneself of the bother that can be Chirrut Imwe is to give him what he wants, but this can be a decidedly difficult feat as Baze has learned over the years so he starts with something obvious. “Good morning, Imwe.” 

“Good morning, Malbus.” Chirrut smiles but does not budge.

And something inside of Baze flips over. And something inside of Baze dies a little. And something inside of Baze sings.

“Was there anything you required?” Baze has spent years watching every microexpression that crosses Chirrut’s face and has yet to learn or understand them all. He’s curious, Chirrut Imwe, full of strangeness and contradictions, but as bright as any piece of kyber that Baze has held in his hands. He likes the kyber mines because they feel like being wrapped in warm blankets, they sing to him the way that someone who loves him might, and they glitter and shine. Few people in the temple can coax the kyber to the surface the way that Baze can. Fewer people still are as bright as kyber like Chirrut.

For all of that, though, Chirrut does not make sense to him the way that the kyber makes sense. He does not sing. He makes Baze warm but it is not comforting; it is unfathomable, all-consuming, like the heart of a star before it dies. He has dreamed of kissing Chirrut and feeling that fire lick over him, encapsulate him, turn him to cinders and dust. He has dreamed of this and woken shaking, covered in sweat, crying but also complete. Dreams are not reality, Baze knows, and dreams do not have to be prophecy, though they can be, especially for those who recognize the Force. If it is a prophecy, he doesn’t know how to parse it. Dreams are strange like that, they rarely come the way they are meant to be seen, and they are often mixed up with so many things that have happened during the waking day. Usually, Baze just writes them off as nothing other than his mind click clicking along too quickly for him to keep up with, grinding through everything good and bad and other that he has encountered, making it into colors and painting with it across the landscape of his mind. Nothing to linger on, nothing to fret about.

The kiss dream, though, he remembers. The kiss dream, he holds close, because a small part of him is okay with the idea of it, kissing Chirrut and being immolated for it. 

Chirrut quirks an eyebrow, and Baze has lost track of the number of times he has seen that over the years and all the myriad things that it can mean. “Required?” his voice breaks, and Baze frowns. “Really? Required? As if I’ve come to you looking for the parchment on the nineteenth doctrines.”

“I don’t have that.” It’s an automatic response, and he blushes the moment it’s out of his mouth because he knows that Chirrut wasn’t really asking for the parchment, but it’s still true; he doesn’t have it. On him. He can get it. Baze knows where everything in the archives are and can find anything in moments, which is one of the reasons why people study with him. 

“I wasn’t asking for it.”

“I know.”

“Then why answer me?” Chirrut’s thumbs have stopped moving, and that is worse than the slow almost caress because Baze had gotten used to the movement. Now they’re just sitting there, on his thighs, digging into the robes slightly, and he has to remember to be perfectly still. 

Baze swallows, and Force help him, Chirrut’s eyes track the motion of his throat again, something strange in their gaze, the way they linger. He tucks both his hands behind his neck, which helps to close off his chest from Chirrut, adds something of a barrier between them even if it means nothing while Chirrut is seated, apparently comfortable enough, on his lap. Baze will take any modicum of space he can get at the moment. Under his fingers, he can tell how hot his neck is, feels the same flush on his cheeks, and hopes that Chirrut won’t notice that his face is ruddy, wonders if he can play it off as sunburn if he asks. “You caught me off guard.”

“With the question?”

Chirrut Imwe is a menace. Chirrut Imwe has been a menace since the day he arrived, all flash and slightly pompous, a handful of months younger than Baze but crowing about how heavy the Force was, how bright the temple was, how loud the kyber was, how grand the universe. Chirrut was skinny and underfed with eyes and a mouth too large for his face and an attitude too buoyant for their poor moon, but there he was anyway, large as any statue in the desert. Baze had wanted to punch him, and Baze had wanted to be his best friend. And, over the years, Baze had wanted other things, too, like to kiss him, like to peel away everything brash and flash on him and find the undoubtedly tender, hurt core at the center of him. 

The strongest stars have hearts of kyber, the masters say, and they are right, but the other part of that, the part that the kyber tells him in the mines when he cups those crystals in his large, scarred palms, is that kyber only grows from wounds. Hearts that are speared form kyber.

He wonders what has speared Chirrut’s heart.

“Well,” Baze clears his throat and dives right in because otherwise what will they do? Simply hover around the issue, which is becomingly increasingly more difficult for him to keep calm about with every passing moment. “Perhaps the sitting more than the question.”

“Sitting catches you off guard?”

Why is he so enraptured by this fool again? “No. Well. I mean, yes, but it’s not the fact that I’m sitting so much as the fact that you’re sitting on me.”

Chirrut tilts his head to the side like an inquisitive, confused initiate trying to understand what the master is attempting to tell him.

Baze isn’t sure what to do with his hands so he crosses his arms tightly over his chest, but then his arms brush Chirrut’s chest as well so he puts his palms flat on the ground on either side of him, which opens his body language. “Chirrut,” he says the name carefully like it is a polished stone that might break if he uses too much force, and he is going to give himself away terribly if this continues. “Why are you sitting on me?”

Chirrut leans closer, presses their chests together, and his thumbs twitch, the slight movement enough to make Baze’s eyes flicker closed for a moment, the traitors. When he opens them again, Chirrut is smiling, bright, light, not even a trace of smug there. “Do you not like me sitting on you?”

Answering questions with questions has been Chirrut’s hallmark since he arrived, but Baze is not used to it being trained on him. Of course, Baze is not usually questioning Chirrut. Typically he is just gazing at him from afar, thinking of the fires that consumed him in his dream and the kiss that precluded them. 

Baze’s throat is dry, every bit as parched as the desert beyond the mesa, but that, somehow, doesn’t stop the words from coming any more than the sands stop the deluges that hit the city occasionally. “I didn’t say that.”

“Oh.”

“I said it caught me off guard.”

Chirrut smiles like a loth cat on a warm rock. “You like me sitting on you?” He inches, if possible, closer.

Baze could if he wanted to, stand and let Chirrut tumble to the ground. Or he could push Chirrut onto the floor. He has the advantage here because everything in Chirrut’s body language is relaxed, calm. This is not sparring or preparation for one. Here is a moment in which Baze might be able to best him, though he doesn’t know if he wants to. Part of him would like to flee, scamper off to the safety of the kyber mines or the archive or the desert or the gardens or the kitchens, all the places that he has heard Chirrut remark are boring and mundane. Chirrut prefers more active pastimes than kneading dough, pruning flowers, filing books, listening for kyber seams. 

Baze could end this right now.

“I didn’t say that.”

“No,” Chirrut isn’t smiling anymore, “you don’t say much at all, Malbus, unless you’re leading prayers and then no one is listening to what you’re saying just how you’re saying it.”

“What does that mean?”

Chirrut looks pained, and his hands clench on Baze’s thighs, which makes Baze straighten his spine and shut his eyes again, counting to ten because what else is there to do.

Part of him knows what else there is to do, though he is not brave enough to concede to it. There is an option open to him here, practically an invitation, a waiting, that he could lift his hands from where they are pressed firmly to the floor and touch, one hand on Chirrut’s cheek, one hand on Chirrut’s waist, and then lips to lips. Lips to lips until he burns, flares brightly and finally under Chirrut’s weight, singed to nothing. 

When Baze opens his eyes, Chirrut is just looking at him, angry. “You look at me. I’ve seen you.”

“It is what my eyes do.”

“You’re an insufferable man, and you don’t even know it.” 

“Excuse me?”

“I said, Baze Malbus, that you are an insufferable man. Since your ears apparently don’t listen to me as well as your eyes look at me.”

“Chirrut, why are you so angry?”

“Maybe because I’m sitting on your lap and you act like you are an oblivious stone instead of the man who is attuned enough to coerce kyber out of thin fucking air.” Each word sounds like a stick hitting stone, which makes Baze thinks of Chirrut’s weapon of choice and how it spins and twhacks home on every strike. Chirrut never misses.

Baze doesn’t understand. He has spent years watching Chirrut and cataloging things, wanting to learn the intricacies, but that doesn’t mean he understands. People are complicated and fascinating and intricate like the art he sees in the marketplace, animals carved inside of other animals the stone itself unbroken. How many different versions of Chirrut live inside of him? How many of them will Baze be lucky enough to know? The other question, the one he doesn’t want to ask, is how many of them will he love the way he thinks he loves the Chirrut he knows. Can he love Chirrut without knowing all of them? 

The hands move, and he almost breathes a sigh of relief because they are no longer placed so dangerously, but then they are cupping his face, forcing his head up. They are eye to eye, him and Chirrut, and Chirrut’s eyes are angry seas that could drown anyone daring to set sail there. “You **look** at me. I have **felt** you.”

Baze swallows, and Chirrut’s gaze is on his throat, on his lips, on his eyes, on every inch of his face as though Chirrut has hundreds of smaller eyes nestled in his head. “I can stop.”

Chirrut groans like someone has told him he has to recite the ninety-fourth doctrines aloud two hundred times, and his voice breaks when he says, “I don’t want you to stop.”

Baze cannot move, can barely breathe. Oh.

Chirrut inches forward, which is amazing because Baze didn’t think he could get any closer, but he manages it, so close that Baze can feel the rush of his air, and he is breathing faster than Baze has ever noted during any sparring match between them. “I don’t want you to stop,” he says again, but it sounds like he is asking for something else.

They are so close together that Baze can feel the beat of Chirrut’s heart, hammering, racing, beating out of his chest like he is scared, and the fingers still on his cheeks seem to shake slightly like perhaps he doubts himself, what he is doing. Chirrut, fearless, conqueror of all, with his brash words, his flashing smile. Chirrut with his kyber heart. Chirrut who looks stricken and afraid and absolutely enraged by it all. 

Baze thought he was the only one of them capable of fright, but when he recognizes it on Chirrut’s face, his hands can finally move, one to Chirrut’s waist and the other to his cheek, which Chirrut flinches from for a moment before giving in with a sigh, his eyes sliding shut, his breathing still quick. Kyber grows from wounds. 

“May I kiss you?” It is his voice, though Baze is not completely sure they are his words. Perhaps they are the words from the Baze who exists in his dreams, the one who is consumed by fire, happily.

“Yes,” Chirrut answers in a rush, the word almost a hiss, and then he doesn’t even wait for Baze to initiate the kiss, moves forward quickly like a stream pouring out of its banks.

It is a fire, an immolation, it spreads from the press of their lips, chaste at first and then parting, simmering, questing. Baze can feel the heat on his cheeks and down his arms, and into his core. It spirals out into every part of him until he can feel nothing but warm and the rush of his blood and the small sighs that Chirrut makes when he kisses again and again. It is a flame, but it does not burn him down; it just illuminates.


End file.
